Marcus woke up at noon with a splitting headache. His whole body ached like he'd been hit by a truck. The adrenaline crash from the night before had left him feeling hollow and sick.
He dragged himself to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. In the mirror, he looked like death. Pale skin. Red eyes. His hands still had a slight tremor.
"Marcus?" His mother's voice drifted up from downstairs. "Are you feeling better, sweetie?"
"Yeah, Mom. Much better."
Another lie. They were getting easier each time.
He dressed slowly and made his way downstairs. His mother sat in her wheelchair at the kitchen table, picking at a bowl of soup. She looked up when he entered, concern written across her face.
"You look terrible, honey. Maybe you should stay home from school today."
"I'm fine. Really."
But he wasn't fine. Every shadow seemed to hide a threat. Every car engine made him jump. The disposable camera in his pocket felt like it weighed fifty pounds.
At school, Marcus couldn't concentrate. He sat through chemistry and English in a daze, his mind replaying the warehouse break-in over and over. The sound of footsteps on concrete. Flashlight beams sweeping past his face. The cold voice promising violence.
During lunch, he spotted Nico sitting alone at a corner table. The older boy looked even worse than Marcus felt. Dark circles under his eyes. Nervous gestures. He kept glancing toward the cafeteria entrance like he expected trouble.
Marcus wanted to go over. To warn him that the family suspected someone was asking questions. But approaching Nico would only make things worse for both of them.
Instead, Marcus sat at his usual table and pretended to read his manga. The story seemed stupid now. Heroes always won in comics. Real life was messier.
After school, he took the long way home again. This time he avoided downtown entirely, sticking to residential streets. But even there, he felt watched. Every black car could be filled with Torrino soldiers. Every stranger could be hunting him.
At home, Marcus went straight to his room and pulled out both cameras. Chloe's digital one with the torture photos. His disposable one with evidence of the drug operation. Together, they contained enough proof to destroy Vincent Torrino's empire.
If he could find someone to trust with them.
Marcus turned on his laptop and started researching law enforcement agencies. The local police were compromised. That was obvious. But what about state police? The FBI? DEA?
Every search led to the same conclusion. Federal agencies were his best bet, but they moved slowly. Investigations took months or years. And in the meantime, people like Chloe kept dying.
There had to be another way.
Marcus opened a new browser window and typed in a search that had been haunting him all day: "How to survive when criminals want you dead."
The results were mostly paranoid conspiracy sites and movie plot summaries. But a few links looked legitimate. Articles about witness protection programs. Blog posts from former undercover officers. Even a forum for people who'd tangled with organized crime and lived to tell about it.
One thread caught his attention: "Fighting back when the system fails you."
The original post was from someone calling himself "GrayGhost." He claimed to be a former special forces operator who'd gone after corrupt officials in his hometown after his daughter was murdered. The story sounded too good to be true, but his advice seemed solid.
Learn to think like they think. Study their patterns. Find their weaknesses. Hit them where they don't expect it. But most importantly: never fight fair. They won't.
Marcus scrolled through dozens of replies. Some were obvious trolls. Others seemed to come from people with real experience. Ex-cops. Former military. Even a few who claimed to be active vigilantes.
All of them agreed on one thing: you had to be willing to get your hands dirty.
The law only works when everyone follows it, one poster wrote. When the criminals buy the cops and judges, you have to become something else. Something they fear more than prison.
Marcus bookmarked the thread and kept reading. By dinnertime, he'd filled a notebook with techniques and tactics. How to tail someone without being spotted. How to gather intelligence. How to disappear in a crowd.
But the most important lesson was simpler: know your enemy better than they know themselves.
"Marcus!" Marlon's voice echoed up the stairs. "Dinner!"
Marcus closed his laptop and headed downstairs. His family was already gathered around the table. Takeout pizza this time, because his mother had been too tired to cook again.
"How was school today?" his father asked.
"Good. Same as always."
Marlon looked at him suspiciously. "You sure? You've been acting weird lately. Distracted."
"Just thinking about college applications. You know how it is."
The lie came smoothly. Too smoothly. Marcus was getting scary good at deception.
His mother smiled weakly. "My smart boy. Always planning ahead."
After dinner, Marcus helped clean up while Marlon disappeared to do homework. Their father sat with their mother in the living room, both pretending to watch TV while she dozed.
The normalcy felt surreal. His family going through their routine while he carried evidence that could start a war. While criminals probably planned ways to silence him permanently.
Back in his room, Marcus pulled up the forum thread again. Someone had posted a new reply to GrayGhost's advice. The username was "NightHunter" and the message was short:
OP is right about thinking like them. But there's more to it. You have to become someone they can't predict. Someone who doesn't exist in their world. Pick a name. Create an identity. Become the ghost in their machine.
Marcus stared at the words. Become someone else. Someone the Torrinos couldn't find or predict or buy off.
He opened a new document and started typing:
Project: Ghost Objective: Destroy the Torrino organization Method: Systematic strikes against their operations Identity: TBD
The cursor blinked after those letters. TBD. To be determined.
Who would he become? What name would strike fear into the hearts of criminals?
Marcus leaned back in his chair and thought about Chloe. About her broken voice at the bridge. About the courage it had taken to steal evidence from her captors.
He thought about his mother, wasting away while he lied to her face. About Nico, trapped in a family that saw him as just another asset to exploit.
He thought about all the victims the Torrinos had left in their wake. All the people who'd trusted the system to protect them and been betrayed.
They deserved better. They deserved justice.
Even if it came from the shadows.
Marcus deleted the document and opened a new one. This time he didn't write anything. Instead, he stared at the blank page and tried to imagine what kind of person could take on Vincent Torrino's empire and win.
Someone ruthless. Someone unpredictable. Someone who operated by rules the criminals didn't understand.
Someone who wasn't Marcus Henderson at all.
A knock on his door made him jump. "Come in."
Marlon poked his head inside. "You okay, dude? You've been up here for hours."
"Just studying."
"Right." Marlon stepped fully into the room and closed the door behind him. "Look, I know something's up with you. You're jumpy all the time. You barely eat. And yesterday I heard you moving around in the middle of the night."
Marcus's blood went cold. "What do you mean?"
"I went to the bathroom around one AM and I heard footsteps in your room. Then I looked outside and saw someone walking down Oak Avenue. Looked like they were wearing dark clothes."
Shit. Marcus had been so focused on avoiding detection from the Torrinos that he'd forgotten about the one person who knew him best.
"You're imagining things," Marcus said. "I was asleep all night."
"Don't lie to me." Marlon's voice was serious now. Adult. "I'm not stupid, Marcus. Whatever you're mixed up in, you're in over your head."
The two brothers stared at each other. Marcus could see genuine worry in Marlon's eyes. Concern for his older brother who was obviously falling apart.
Part of him wanted to confess everything. To share the terrible weight he'd been carrying alone. But the memory of Chloe's tortured face stopped him.
Don't trust anyone.
"I'm not mixed up in anything," Marcus said quietly. "I'm just having trouble sleeping. Stress about school and Mom and everything."
Marlon studied his face for a long moment. Then he sighed. "Okay. If you say so. But Marcus? If you need help, you can talk to me. You know that, right?"
"Yeah. I know."
"Good." Marlon turned to go, then paused. "Just... be careful, okay? Whatever it is you're not telling me, be careful."
After Marlon left, Marcus sat in silence for a long time. His little brother was too smart for his own good. How long before he figured out what was really happening? And what would Marcus do then?
He pushed the thought aside and opened his laptop again. The forum thread was still there, full of advice from people who'd walked this path before.
Create an identity. Become the ghost in their machine.
Marcus opened a new document and started typing:
Rules of Engagement:
1. Never operate as Marcus Henderson
2. Always have an exit strategy
3. Document everything
4. Trust no one completely
5. Strike fast, disappear faster
He paused, thinking about what name to use. Something that would send a message. Something that would let the Torrinos know their time was up.
In his manga, heroes often chose names that reflected their mission. Names that struck fear into the hearts of evil.
Marcus thought about shadows and justice. About ghosts and hunters. About the darkness that was growing inside him with each passing day.
He glanced at his manga collection, rows of colorful spines lining his shelves. His eyes stopped on a particular volume. Death Note. The story of Light Yagami, a student who found a supernatural notebook that could kill anyone whose name was written inside.
Light had called himself "Kira." The Japanese pronunciation of "killer." But Marcus remembered the deeper meaning. In Japanese, "kira kira" meant "glittering" or "shining." Light had seen himself as a shining beacon of justice in a corrupt world.
But there was another character in that story. L, the mysterious detective who hunted Kira. A figure who operated from the shadows, revealing nothing about his true identity. Someone who understood that to catch a monster, you sometimes had to become something equally terrifying.
Marcus opened a Japanese dictionary website and started typing. He wasn't looking for "killer" or "death" or anything so obvious. He wanted something that captured the essence of what he was becoming.
Animals kept coming up in his searches. Wolves. Ravens. Serpents. All creatures that hunted in darkness, that struck without warning.
Then he found it buried in a forum about Japanese mythology. A word that perfectly captured what he wanted to become:
"Karasu."
It meant "crow" in Japanese. But in mythology, crows were messengers of death. Harbingers of judgment. They appeared on battlefields to feast on the guilty. In some stories, they carried the souls of the wicked to punishment.
More importantly, crows were intelligent. Adaptable. They remembered faces and held grudges. They worked alone but could coordinate with others when necessary. They thrived in urban environments, invisible to those who didn't know how to look.
And they were patient. A crow would watch. Learn. Wait for the perfect moment to strike.
Finally, he typed a single word: Karasu.
Someone who operated in the shadows. Who moved unseen through the criminal underworld. Who brought justice to those who thought they were untouchable.
It felt right.
Marcus saved the document and closed his laptop. Tomorrow he would start planning his next move. Tonight, he would get some actual sleep.
But as he lay in bed staring at the ceiling, one thought kept him awake:
Marlon suspected something. If his own brother could see through his deception, how long before trained killers figured it out?
The Torrinos were looking for whoever had broken into their warehouse. They were taking precautions, moving operations, tightening security.
Which meant Marcus had to move fast. Before they found him. Before they connected him to the break-in.
Before they made him disappear like Chloe.
Outside his window, Millbrook slept peacefully. But somewhere in the darkness, criminals planned their next move. Corruption spread like cancer through the system.
And in a teenager's bedroom, a new kind of justice was being born. One that didn't play by the rules. One that struck from the shadows and vanished like smoke.
The Torrinos thought they owned this town. They were about to learn how wrong they were.
Karasu was coming for them.